


Saying I Love You Has Nothing To Do With Meaning It

by lynnearlington



Category: Glee
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-25
Updated: 2010-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynnearlington/pseuds/lynnearlington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shit, he thinks. I'm in love with her</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saying I Love You Has Nothing To Do With Meaning It

Somehow, somewhere, Noah Puckerman falls for Rachel Berry. Hard. He's not totally sure how it happens, he can't pinpoint a moment and say,  _yeah, that's when I fell for her,_  but it's not like he didn't really love her before, he just wasn't  _in_  love with her and he seriously does  _not_  know how the hell it happened. He just knows that one day he isn't in love with her and the next day he is.

They became friends sometime after junior year when Quinn wizened up and dumped his ass and Finn still couldn't look at him without wanting to punch him. They were two outsiders that formed a reluctant friendship that summer. It turned out that were way more alike than either of them realized. So when they both figured out that they'd be in New York City after graduation they did the normal thing two close friends that used to date do. They moved in together.

A month after living together, Puck totally got into her pants. He has skills, no lie, and who could blame him for doing it. The girl was smokin' and he was around her almost 24/7. And the shit that girl wore around their apartment...He's a dude. No one would have expected him to last very long.

Regardless, he hasn't had to sleep in his bedroom since and all in all it had been pretty awesome. Rachel had somehow become one of his closest friends turned girlfriend and she was totally awesome to hang out with. Not to mention she was hot as fuck. He basically gets a completely amazing roommate followed by ridiculously hot sex.

So it's not completely shocking when he realizes he's in love with her. They've been dating for a year now, friends for longer, but it still scares the crap out of him. I mean this is  _Rachel Berry_ , 22 years old and still signing her name with a gold star. And it's not like he's never told her,  _I love you,_  before, he's just never really meant it. Not the way you're supposed to anyway. He's always meant  _I want to get in your pants_ , but girls fall for that I love you crap a whole lot easier so if saying three little words meant he was getting laid, that was a small price to pay.

He comes to the realization on their living room couch, an Indians game playing on the screen of their TV in the little apartment they share in New York City. She's in the kitchen cooking dinner because Wednesdays are her nights and Mondays are his and she's humming like she always does, usually it's something she heard on the radio or some number she's been belting out to the masses on Broadway. 

Tonight it's something familiar and at first he can't really place it, but minutes later his brain clicks in recognition and he feels like he's right back in high school, waiting behind a curtain with the rest of glee club, anxious for their cue to step out while Rachel sang her fucking ass off on stage. He thinks maybe he might have fallen a little in love with her that night. Of course, even thinking that makes him want to check his crotch and make sure his balls are still there.

He hears her leave the kitchen and come around the couch, setting another bottle of beer on their coffee table and taking the empty.

"Thanks, babe," he says when she leans down the kiss him.

She smiles as she pulls away. "Dinner's ready in a half hour," she says, turning her eyes to the TV. "Who's winning?" 

"Indians."

She raises her fist in a little victory motion and grins at him. She's wearing these little shorts that barely cover her ass (New York is fucking hot in the summer) and white tank top she favors in the evening when they're just lounging around. Her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail, exposing her neck and Puck wants nothing more than to drag her onto the couch and spend the next few hours forgetting about dinner.

"You look hot, babe," he says, reaching his hand out in invitation.

Rachel takes it and settles on top of him, a leg on each side of his hips. His hands move to her ass and hers settle on his scalp, her nails dragging across it until they stop at the back of his neck, scratching lightly. When she bites her lip and rolls her hips down he groans. She fucking knows what that does to him.

He kisses her, his hands roaming up and under her shirt and tries to think of ways to convince her that being naked right now would be really awesome. Before he can enact his masterplan, however, she breaks their kiss and pulls away to stare at him. Her hands stay locked behind his neck, and when she pushes her hips back down into his she's smirking at him, face flushed lightly. He knows she fucking wants this too so he opens his mouth to tell her exactly that.

But she clasps a hand over his mouth before he can get the words out and leans back in, their faces inches apart.

"Later," she says, pulling her hand away and kissing him once more before getting up from the couch and leaving the room. The old Puck would probably be pissed that he just got cockblocked by a dinner they could easily eat hours later, but seriously, Rachel is so worth waiting for. Besides, her lasagna is fucking worth it too.

He watches her walk back into the kitchen to finish dinner and when he takes a sip of his beer he realizes how fucking comfortable with his life he is. He has this  _fucking gorgeous_  woman in his kitchen cooking him dinner, bringing him beer, the Indians are winning and he so knows he's going to get laid tonight. Could his life be any more awesome?

When she starts humming again he feels a smile creep over his face and he realizes he's not even really paying attention to baseball game on TV. He's definitely spent the last couple minutes thinking about how amazing his girlfriend is and he's smiling like a fucking idiot over hearing her hum in their kitchen.  _Shit,_  he thinks.  _I'm in love with her._

His first thought is,  _holy crap_ , he has to marry her or some shit now. 

His second thought is,  _holy crap_ , he probably has to fucking tell her soon. 

His third thought is,  _holy crap_ , what if she's not in love with him back?

His eyes go wide as he has a difficult time processing what's going on so he puts his beer on the table and tries to figure out what the hell to do because Noah Puckerman does not fall for Rachel Berry.

And yeah, they've been dating for awhile and they live together and they've been sleeping together for like ever and maybe it's pretty late in the game to be exchanging real I love yous (he knows for a fact Finn and Rachel said the three words after only a month), but jeez. He does the only thing he can think of to do.

He leaves. He grabs his keys from the table in the entryway and slips his flip-flops on before reaching for the door. His hand is on the doorknob when he hears her come up behind him.

"Where are you going?"

He spins to see her looking completely confused, head tilted to one side and a furrow in her brow. He thinks she looks adorable. This is _ridiculous_. "Just for a walk, babe. I'll be right back."

"Dinner's soon," she says, walking up to him and kissing him goodbye. "Don't be late, Noah Puckerman."

He nods, kisses her back, whips the door open and walks out of their apartment.

\--

Three blocks later he's sitting in his favorite bar. It's small and dark and smells like stale beer and peanuts and he fucking loves it here. Four beers later he texts the only person in New York City he thinks he can talk to about his problem.

She shows up ten minutes later and he's never been more happy to see Santana Lopez in his life.

"Classy, Puckerman," she says, eyes roaming around the place before she takes a seat on the stool next to him.

"This place is golden, Lopez," he retorts, plastering a smirk on his face and raising his beer bottle in salute.

She rolls her eyes and signals to the bartender with a finger pointed down at Puck's drink before turning her gaze back to him. "So, what was so important that I had to rush over here?"

"What, like your life is so exciting?"

"I have things to do, asswipe."

The banter with Santana calms him. He doesn't know how it is that she somehow became his best friend after high school, (he thinks it probably has something to do with Finn fucking disowning him and the fact that she's the only person he really knows in this city aside from Rachel) but he's grateful nonetheless. "Like what, file your nails into claws?"

In classic Santana fashion, she rolls her eyes again. Girl is going to strain something doing that someday. "I was born with claws, I don't have to file them that way," she smirks. "You know there's an Indians game on, right?"

"Fuck, of course I know that. This is  _important_."

Santana kind of laughs at the expression on his face so he turns his head down and takes another swig of his beer. "Wow, what the hell has you so worked up?"

He doesn't answer, just takes another swig of his beer.

"Britt's making chili for the game and I kind of want to be there right now. So if we're just going to sit here and stare at the wall, I'm going to bounce."

His eyes widen. "You left her in the kitchen unsupervised?" Brittany was good at some things. Recipes, however, were never one of them. He still remembers with horror the time she set his kitchen on fire trying to make macaroni and cheese.

She smacks him on the arm, "She's not a child." Another eye roll. "Can you like, get to the point?" The bartender places a beer in front of her and she takes a drink.

"I'm in love with Rachel."

Santana nearly gets up and off her stool. "Ugh, I so do not want to hear about your fucked up sex life with Rachel freakin' Berry."

He grabs her arm before she can leave and pulls her back onto the stool. "Fuck, Lopez. I need your help. I'm freaking out here," he whispers harshly, looking around.

"Yeah I would be too if I was in bed with  _Manhands_."

"Fucking watch your mouth, Santana." High school was one thing, but people can't talk shit about his girl anymore. "Rachel's really cool so just lay off."

Santana just stares at him for a little while after that. "Holy shit," she says, taken aback, eyes wide. "Holy shit! You  _are_  in love with her. Holy shit!"

"I already said that," he says, getting annoyed. "Get there faster."

She blinks. "Holy shit."

"You are like, the worst fucking best friend in the world."

Her expression is somewhere between horrified and completely amused but instead of saying anything more she lifts her hand at the bartender again. "Tequila," she states with two fingers in the air. She pulls out her phone and sends a quick text message. Brittany, probably.

When the shots come, they both throw them back, faces wincing slightly as the liquor goes down and Santana orders two more. "I need to be drunker before you start talking," she says when he opens his mouth after their second shot.

After the third shot glass is turned upside down on the table Santana finally turns to face him again. "Okay, you're in love or whatever with Berry."

"Yeah," he says, swirling the beer in his bottle around.

"When the hell did that happen?"

"Fuck if I know. It just did!"

Santana nods slowly. "Okay, okay."

When nothing more is forthcoming, Puck stares at her. "Lopez. Help me out!"

"What do you want me to do?!"

"I don't know, what the fuck am I supposed to do now?"

Santana's face scrunches up into a disgusted expression. "Tell her?"

Puck's head slams down on the bar as he lets out a groan. "I was afraid of that."

"Well what do you want me to say?"

He looks back up at her. "How did you tell Brittany?"

Santana blinks. "Tell Brittany what?"

Puck gives her his best  _you're an idiot_  look and says, "That you were in love with her."

"Oh," she says, tilting her head up in thought.

"Oh?"

She shrugs. "I didn't have to."

"What do you mean you didn't have to?"

"I didn't have to."

"Shit, you are like zero fucking help right now."

"Sorry," she says, exasperation coating her tone as she throws her hands up in the air. "I didn't. I've known Britt since we were in diapers. That girl fucking  _knows_  me."

"Well I'm pretty sure that I have to fucking say something to Rachel about it. She probably has some crazy life plan about being told someone is in love with her or some shit.  _God._  I don't do romantic bullshit."

"So you mean to tell me that you've been living with this girl for a year, been dating her for almost as long and never once have you said those three little words? How has she never said them to you? This is  _Rachel Berry_  we're talking about."

"Well, I mean we might have said them. Once or twice, or a few times, but like never..."

"Whoa, whoa. You've already told her, what's the problem."

"I was  _lying_  before."

She shakes her head before knocking back more of her beer. "This is so way outside my area of expertise. You're such a loser."

He groans and puts his head back on the bar, rocking his forehead back and forth on the wood top. "I am  _so_  screwed."

"Where is Berry anyway?"

"At home. Cooking dinner."

Santana chokes on a laugh. "That girl is cooking you dinner at home and you're here with me getting drunk and moaning about how you're all over the moon over her or whatever?"

"Yes?"

"Puck, you like, _have_  to get home."

"I know," he responds into the bar counter.

"Like  _now_. Plus, this thing you're doing right now. All like lovesick and shit. It's pathetic."

He thinks it's the liquor in his system but he can't stop the next few words from coming out, soft and low and pained. "What if she's not in love with me?"

Santana props her elbow on the bar and rests her forehead in her palm. "Are you shitting me?"

Puck sits up and grabs his beer. "I'm serious." He fiddles with the label, picking it off at the corner. "I can't tell her if she's not going to mean it back."

"You just said she's already said it."

"What if she was lying too?" He asks in a whisper.

"I highly doubt Rachel Berry lied to you about that. That's more  _your_  style."

He groans again and puts his face in his hands. Shit, this is not good.

Santana takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before putting her hand on his shoulder and making him look at her. "Listen, you and me?" She gestures between them. "We're not supposed to get this lucky. Okay? We're supposed to be alone and miserable and living off one night stands. You and me?" She gestures again and he thinks the tequila is finally catching up to her too. "Sluts. We fucked around in high school and it's a fucking wonder that there is anyone in this world that would put up with our shit."

She pauses and grabs her beer off the counter, pointing at him with the bottle. "We're lucky as fuck that Brittany and,  _God_  I never thought I'd say this, Rachel," she grimaces on the name, "exist. If you fuck this up and don't fix it, you'll regret it. Forever. People like those two don't come around very often, hell, they almost never come around for shitheads like us. So. Go. Home. Tell that Broadway diva the truth and pray to whoever you pray to that she sticks around."

Santana takes a swig of her beer before putting it back down on the counter. "Chances are she will." She gets this little smile on her face that Puck has never seen before and not for the first time since they graduated and got the fuck out of Lima, Ohio he realizes how much Santana has changed. Mellowed. It's like she's happy for the first time ever.

She pats him on the back twice and then lays a couple of bills on the bar top. "Good luck," she whispers before kissing him on the cheek and walking out of the bar.

\--

He makes it back to the apartment two hours after he left and he knows Rachel is going to be pissed. Like, really pissed. She's fucking obsessed with punctuality. The last time he was late for something he got a forty minute lecture on how promptness reflects commitment before she basically ignored him for a week. Girl is mental.

"Rach?" The living room and kitchen are dark which he knows isn't a good sign. He flips the lights on but he still can't figure out where Rachel is. Her keys are still sitting on the table by the door so he's sure she's at least somewhere inside the apartment. "Rach?"

"Where the hell have you been?" She's standing in the doorway to their bedroom, hands on her hips and from the way her face is looking, she's gearing up for a lecture.

The alcohol has totally dulled his reaction time and his ability to think clearly and apparently loosed his jaw considerably. Which is probably why at this moment instead of explaining his whereabouts he blurts, "I'm in love with you," instead.

She looks at him funny and walks forward, her nose curling up when she gets close enough. "You smell like bar," she says. "Come on." She grabs his wrist and pulls him through the apartment to the kitchen, sitting him on a chair when they get there.

He watches her grab a glass from the cabinet and fill it with water before handing it to him. "Did you hear me? I said-"

"I heard you. Drink." She stares pointedly at the glass in his hand.

He rolls his eyes and drinks it because it gives him time to think things like:  _Shit_ , she didn't say it back. She's  _not_  in love with him. How can he take it back and blame it on the five beers and shots of tequila?

The glass is barely empty before she's grabbing it and filling it with water again. "Rach," he says, when her back is turned to him.

"I'm mad at you."

"I know."

"You missed dinner."

"I know."

"To go to a bar."

"I know."

"To get drunk with Santana Lopez."

"I kn-. Wait. How did you know that?"

"Brittany texted me about twenty minutes after you left," she turns around to face him.

They sit there for awhile and Puck tries to get his head to stop spinning when Rachel walks back over to him and puts herself in his lap. That has to a good sign, right?

She traces his eyebrow with a finger, her eyes roaming his face. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

Her finger is pretty distracting and he feels like he just wants to fall asleep but he realizes he should probably be engaging in conversation right now. "Mmm?"

Rachel laughs softly and he smiles at the sound. "You're an idiot. Getting drunk at a bar and then stumbling back here to tell me you're in love with me."

That's right, he fucking blurted that out and she didn't say anything. Fuck. "Rach," he says, his head getting a little clearer. He thinks it's the fear.

"Noah. Shut up," but she's smiling as she says it. "You think I don't know that? You think I would move in with you and cook you dinner and bring you beer and all that if I wasn't sure that you loved me?"

He opens his mouth to protest, to tell her the truth about how he just fucking realized it today and that when he said it tonight it was totally different but she puts her hand up against his mouth just like she had earlier in the evening.

"I know you've never really said it," she says and his eyes go wide because, shit, she  _knew_? "You didn't have to." She shakes her head and looks at a spot above his shoulder before making eye contact again. "You didn't have to say it."

Puck thinks back to the bar and Santana and he remembers her saying, "That girl fucking  _knows_  me," and now he thinks he totally knows what she meant. He grabs her wrist to tug her hand off his mouth. "I didn't?"

" _Noah_ , you come to every single one of my shows. Last weekend you watched a Barbra Streisand marathon with me when I know they were playing all six hundred Rocky movies on that other channel. When I broke my favorite coffee cup you went all the way across the city to try and find me a replacement. And when you don't think I'm awake at night, you kiss me on the forehead. You never had to tell me." Her hands are behind his head again, stroking back and forth against his neck and for the millionth time in the past year he thinks about how fucking  _perfect_  Rachel is. Seriously.

He looks straight into her eyes, "I love you."

"I know," she responds, a wide grin on her face. She kisses him and he's back to thinking up ways of getting her naked as soon as possible but it seems she's got other ideas.

Rachel detaches herself from his lips and stands up, putting her hands on her hips and mirroring her earlier expression from when he first walked into the apartment. "I'm still mad about dinner. That was totally irresponsible, Noah. Do you know how long I spent making that lasagna?"

His mouth starts watering at the thought of food, especially that particular dish. Before he can answer and think up some way to convince her not to be mad anymore (lasagna and sex would be an awesome end to this evening and he's sobering up enough to accomplish just that), she walks out of the kitchen towards their bedroom. "No sex for you tonight," she says as she's walking away.

His head lolls back and he groans. Fucking dinner cockblocking him again.


End file.
